Who Should Run the Country?

The singer Cher says it should be young non-white women. I guess that means the likes of Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashid Tlaib.

Cher said “Since the day our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, our country has been run almost exclusively by old white men. Thankfully because of Nancy and other strong women, this is changing.”

Using Cher’s thought pattern, changing to what? To being run by old white women like Nancy? No, she didn’t say that. She refers only to “strong women”. Then why didn’t she say “run almost exclusively by men”? Or “strong men”?

She added in “old” and “white”. That’s strange. She’s old too. She’s 72. Her use of “white” is racial, but she’s white and Nancy is white.

Can we make sense of her use of “old white men”? Yes, if she means that she wants to see young, non-white women running the country.

But why that category? Merely because they are not old, not white and not men? Are their ideas and policies going to be determined by the fact that they are young, not white and female? That’s what Cher is implying. Why should someone who is a young non-white woman be better equipped to make political decisions than an old white man? If this were true, why have societies not discovered this before? Are we just now awakening to the superior leadership afforded by young non-white women?

Is Cher calling for free college education for the young, government programs and wealth transfers for the non-white and unlimited abortions for the female?

I’m old, white and male. I do not resent Cher’s comment, but I wonder about her character. I wouldn’t criticize her for being old, white and female. That would not be right. If I did that, I’d be criticizing all the elderly white women I’ve ever known, including my own mother; and they’ve been very good and helpful to me. Is Cher hostile toward old white men in general, or is she thinking about Trump, whom she hates?

Or is Cher hostile toward the powerful old white men who denied the rights of so many minorities in our history? That’s highly likely, in which case she’s on the wrong track. Young, non-white women with power will abuse it in their own ways as badly as have old white men in the past and present.

Ilhan Omar is quoted as saying Trump is not human. Is he then sub-human? That’s the rhetoric of those who engage in mass exterminations and genocides.

Cher’s thinking is not deep enough. Her enemy should not be old white men and she shouldn’t place her hopes on young non-white women. The problem of government and power isn’t solved or ameliorated by replacing people with these characteristics of age, race and sex by their opposites.

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11:16 am on March 12, 2019